Kenyon Phillips to Star in Jason Craig & Dave Malloy's BEARDO Off-Broadway This Winter

Pipeline Theatre Company has announced Beardo, with book and lyrics by Jason Craig (Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage), music by Dave Malloy (Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812), and directed by Ellie Heyman (The Traveling Imaginary). Beardo will take place at St. John's Lutheran Church (155 Milton Street, Brooklyn - G Train, Greenpoint Stop).

Beardo will begin previews on February 3, 2017, and officially open on February 12, 2017, playing a limited engagement through February 26, 2017.

For its New York premiere, Pipeline Theatre Company is collaborating with authors Craig and Malloy on revising Beardo, including a brand new character and additional music. The team convened in August for a script workshop, and will continue to develop the music throughout December as they work towards creating a never-before-seen experience this February.

Beardo is a Russian indie rock musical from the outrageous minds that brought us Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage and Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812. Beardo explores the mad inner workings of Rasputin, the infamous mystic who sexed his way to the fall of the Russian monarchy. Join Pipeline Theatre Company this February and catapult through the mysterious ascent of one of the most peculiar and seductive figures in modern history.

Beardo will be staged at St John's Lutheran Church, a fully operational church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where the production will make full use of the building's high-arched ceilings, breathtaking staiNed Glass windows, fully-functioning pipe organ, and paint slowly curling off the walls.

Beardo will star Kenyon Phillips (The Life And Death of Kenyon Phillips) as "Beardo," Alex Highsmith (Angels in America) as "Tsarista," Liz Leimkuhler (If You Wanna See The Devil) as "Shack Sister," Brian Bock (Three Sisters) as "Yusapoof," Pipeline ensemble member Willy Appleman (Clown Bar) as "Tsar," Rolls Andre (CANT) as "Shack Man," Shaye Troha (Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage) as "Shack Woman," and Ben Langhorst (The Pirate La Dee Da) as "Person of the Court."

Beardo will feature music direction by Ian Axness (Clown Bar), set design by Carolyn Mraz (The Hatmaker's Wife), costume design by Katja Andreiev (The Caucasian Chalk Circle), lighting design by Mary Ellen Stebbins (LongYarn), sound design by Dan Moses Schreier (Broadway's A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder) and Joshua Reid (Broadway's American Psycho, Associate Sound Design), props design by Jess Adams (Broadway's Long Day's Journey Into Night), choreography by the Kuperman Brothers (The Light Princess), and production stage management by Kristy Bodall (Clown Bar).

The band for Beardo is conductor Sam Kulik (guitar), Blake Allen (viola), Ezra Gale (bass), Sarah Haines (violin), SeRena Miller (cello), and Hajnal Pivnick (violin).

Beardo received its world premiere with The Shotgun Players at The Ashby Stage, Berkeley, CA (Patrick Dooley, Artistic Director) in March, 2011.

Tickets can be purchased at www.pipelinetheatre.org/tickets. A limited number of pre-sale tickets are now available on a first come, first serve basis, and range from $20 to $55. Regular tickets range from $25 to $60. Beardo will be performed Tuesday through Sunday. All shows are at 8PM.

Jason Craig (Writer) is Co-Founder/Co-Artistic Director of Banana Bag & Bodice. His writing with BB&B has won him awards nationally and internationally. (Scripts include The Sewers, The Young War, Sandwich). Commissions outside of BB&B include The Exit Theatre (San Francisco) to write Gogol: A Clown Opera, Juggernaut Theatre (NY) to write Oh What War which was presented at Here Arts Space, and The Shotgun Players (Berkeley CA) to write Beardo. His adaptation of Beowulf entitled Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage (music by Dave Malloy) was a commission by Shotgun Players and played at The Ashby Stages and Berkeley Rep, and made its New York premiere at Abrons Arts Center in 2009. It has traveled the world. His most recent script LongYarn, will be published in 2017 in TDR.

Dave Malloy (Composer) is a composer/writer/performer/orchestrator/Sound Designer. He has written eleven musicals,including Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, an electropop opera based on a slice of Tolstoy's War & Peace (now playing on Broadway); Ghost Quartet, a song cycle about love, death, and whiskey; Preludes, a musical fantasia set in the hypnotized mind of Sergei Rachmaninoff; Three Pianos, a drunken romp through Schubert's "Winterreise"; Black Wizard/Blue Wizard, an escapist RPG fantasy; Beowulf-A Thousand Years of Baggage, an anti-academia rock opera; Beardo, a retelling of the Rasputin myth; Sandwich, a musical about killing animals; and Clown Bible, Genesis to Revelation told through clowns. He has won two Obie Awards, the Richard Rodgers Award, an ASCAP New Horizons Award, and a Jonathan Larson Grant, and has been a MacDowell fellow and Composer-in-Residence at Ars Nova. Future projects include adaptations of Moby-Dick and Shakespeare's Henriad. He lives in Brooklyn. davemalloy.com

Ellie Heyman (Director) is a New York City-based theatre director. She directed The Traveling Imaginary, a theatrical rock show, which was rated in the "top five shows of the year" by NPR and a Time Out "Critic's Pick" on two continents and the narrative podcast The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air), featuringJohn Cameron Mitchell, Tim Robbins and Julian Koster (Neutral Milk Hotel). Ellie directs the ongoing projects of downtown stars Erin Markey, Becca Blackwell, Heather Litteer and Banana, Bag & Bodice. Her work been presented by The Kennedy Center, Abrons Art Center, The Bushwick Starr, La Mama, New World Stages (Incite Festival), Brown University, Duke University, The Drama League, Boston Center for American Performance, En Garde Arts and indie rock clubs across America. Currently Ellie is developing Elevation 506 in Bulgaria with Yasen Vasilev and Home in Istanbul with Turkish playwright Sami Berat Marcali. Upcoming projects include: Boner Killer (The Public Theater: Under the Radar), They, Themself and Schmerm (The Public Theater: Under the Radar) and Shark by Dane Terry (PS122). She is a graduate of Northwestern and Boston Universities (MFA), a Drama League Directing Fellow, and current WP Theater Lab Member.

Pipeline Theatre Company (Artistic Director, Ari Schrier; Producing Director, Natalie Gershtein) believes that an unbridled imagination is a force of magic with the power to provoke a more courageous and compassionate world. Productions include: Alex Mills' Shakespeare the Dead (World Premiere, part of the Dream Up! Festival at Theater for the New City); Bekah Brunstetter's Fat Kids on Fire (directed by Tony-nominee Peter Frechette); Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle (2011 NYIT Award for Best Original Score for composer Cormac Bluestone, Nomination for Best Lighting Design for Eric Southern, ITBA Special Citation for Outstanding Production); Evan Twohy's Bubble and Squeak (Finalist in the 35th Annual Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival); Colby Day's Felix & The Diligence (World Premiere, 2012 NYIT Award Nomination for Best Set Design for Andy Yanni); a workshop reading of Nate Weida's musical I's Twinkle (part of Judson Memorial Church's Magic Time series); Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Ash Girl (directed by Jessika Doyel), Colby Day's Giant Killer Slugs (World Premiere, part of the Dream Up! Festival at Theater for the New City), Adam Szymkowicz's Clown Bar, (New York Times Critics' Pick, 2013 NYIT Award Nominations for Outstanding Featured Actor for Andrew Farmer, Outstanding Featured Actress for Kelley Rae O'Donnell, Outstanding Ensemble, and Outstanding Costume Design for Meghan Gaber), Nate Weida's folk gibberish musical BYUIOO (World Premiere) and most recently, Andrew Farmer's The Gray Man (World Premiere).